The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-05-29
(PRiCE a10 A YEAR. /
) CENTS A COPY. 4
GIRL GRADUATES.

Summer is coming and the annual food
of girl graduates is about ready to deluge
the land. Commencement day with its
white gowns, its be-ribboned essay and its
touching sense Of the high aspirations to be
reached after in life is a charming occasion.
But after graduation what then.
Boast as much as you like about the pro-
gress of the girl, she is afte' all rather
helpless being still, and however satisfac-
tory helpleSsness in woman may be in poetry
or in theory, in actual life it is far from
being the happiest lot in the world. Some
thing more than two-thirGs, 1t is sometimes
put MS high as four-iifths, of all the adult
women III New York are wage earners, but
what does their need Of dollars amount tos
A majority of them average less than 81
day and $40 or SO a week marks the limit
of the ambition of the ordinary salary work
er Women may be self-supporting, but
very few, comparatively speaking have
reached that point where they look beyond
subsistence to n comfortable competency,
Us men reckon such matters or TO getting rich.
1t is true enough in a way that the range
of womeu's industries is broadening. Busi-
ness circles, in the city at least recognize
very little distinction nowadays between
what is properly women's work and mems
work, except the all-hnportant dividing line
of pay Go into any large manufactory,
whether of wearing apparel household fur
nishings or articles connected distinctly with
mems labor and somewhere about the build
ing, working with needle or brush, tending
a machine, keeping books or manipulating
a typewriter, you will find woman at woik.
On the other hand, start any new industry,
/ care not how specially adapted to woman's
nimble fingers or keen eyesight or insight,
and il there is money in itn the woman
comes into immediate competition with a
man. The art OF earning a living for man
or woman either is one that involves good
deal of thought and study, more of each
with every year that goes by.
With the higher class of industries to
which women aspire the case is much the
same as with the lower Teaching is mise
rably overcrowded, and except under un-
usual circumstances is the most unsatisfac-
tory of stats to lean on. Journalism Is
uncertain and not an easy profession to get
a start in. Literature, without the highest
order of talent, is hopeless. Lecturing has
passed its prime. Public reading is going
the same way. In music vocal and instT1i-
mental, except for the one rarely gifted in
hundred thousand, there is an absolute glut
OF the market. To be third-rate musician
is to fail outright. To paint daubs and call
them pictures Is a sin. To murder the mod
ern languages by false accent hath not for
giveness in this world.
Taken collectively, the difference between
men and wonderland it is an infinite differ
ence--is comprehended in five syllables, or
ganization. What is nation, a State, a.
city, a church. the public school system, any
modern institution whatever! a corpora
| tion of men III which women are discon-
nected units. What are business firms and
| industrial concerns of every description!
| Organizations of two or more men with
rarely a woman partner among them
| Women have done much, but II is as well
not TO exploit their successes too loudly till
they have done mere. They need business
| education in business principles, regular
| hours Of work, the same thoroughaess that
| New England housekeeper puts into bak-
| ing and cleaning, that society girl devotes
| to dressing and her mother throws into
keeping up the round of calls. They need
above everything else faith in themselves
and business courage.
Mrs Mary Mapes Dodge, the editor
of ST. Nicholas, is one of the most ge-
NAL of the women writers to meet.
She is pleasant-faced, blue-eyed and brown
haired, just plump enough to become
woman who has made place for herself,
and is not fretti1g about possibilities OF fr-
ture success or failure; vivacious, an excel
lent talker and always-a criterion Of lit
erary womans prudence still-well dressed.
People who know, estimate DR.. Mary
Putnam Jacobs nedica! practice at about
S25, 900 year, which is probably as large
an income as is enjoyed by any physician or
the other sex in New York. DIR Jacobs
theories with regard to the objective method
In the education Of children. which she has
put forth in several magazine articles, are
put TO practical test in the training OF her
daughter, the children of her servants aH&
all other little folks within her influences.
The results are said to be phenomenally sue
cessful. e. z. H.